Ministers may look at social care insurance as costs rise

People may have to pay into a compulsory social insurance scheme to contribute towards the costs of care in old age under proposals floated by the government yesterday.

The health secretary, Alan Johnson, said he would produce a green paper early next year on dealing with the long-term problem of providing adequate non-medical care for a growing number of vulnerable older people.

Gordon Brown hopes to lift his flagging prime ministership over the next 48 hours by giving details of a 10p tax compensation package and setting out a draft Queen’s speech. Bills from the communities department, justice ministry, Home Office, and health and education will offer new rights to the public to scrutinise and seek redress from public bodies.

Bar lesbians from IVF treatment in absence of father figure, say Tories

Lesbian couples should be blocked from having IVF treatment unless they agree that a father figure would be involved in the upbringing of their child, the Tories said yesterday.

In a sign of David Cameron’s determination to campaign for traditional parenting, the Tories challenged the government to guarantee that couples seeking IVF treatment would have a “male role model” for their child.Read more on this story in The Guardian

Carer who tried to kill husband spared jail

A carer who told police she tried to kill her wheelchair-bound husband three times was spared jail after a judge ruled it was her “cry for help”.

Shirley Watts, 61, choked her husband Michael with a dressing gown cord, smothered him with a pillow and pushed his head underwater in a bath on three successive days last Christmas, before she dialled 999 and asked to be arrested.Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Deals to help workless teens shift to councils

Companies and charities under contract to solve the seemingly intractable problem of workless teenagers are losing lucrative deals to teams run by local authorities and government-financed organisations, even in cases where the authorities’ youth services have been condemned as “inadequate” by Ofsted, the education regulator

The multiple sclerosis sufferer who spent six years sleeping in a chair after ‘health bosses banned nurses from lifting her in case they got injured’

A legal wrangle has forced a multiple sclerosis sufferer to sleep in a chair for six years, it was claimed yesterday. Lorraine Wolstenholme has not been able to get into bed since her local NHS trust banned nurses from lifting her out of her chair in case they were injured.

Children’s secretary Ed Balls has admitted the government made mistakes in its last budget and pre-budget report over family finances, in a briefing over Labour’s row over the abolition of the 10p income tax rate.

He said the credit crunch was impacting on finances “in a way no one anticipated” and urged the Treasury not to delay any compensation package for those who penalised by the abolition of the 10p rate.

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